Monday, August 31, 2009

It was a big chess feast in Moscow on August 30th. It seemed everybody was playing blitz. Unfortunately the tournament showed that I have to work a lot more in order to get back into top form.

I talked with Anatoly Karpov who attended the closing ceremony and he said that blitz is the first indicator of good or bad chess form.

The main men's tournament was won by Alexander Grischuk who scored 17 points out of 21 games and took the first place ahead of Alexander Morozevich and Sergey Karjakin who finished the tournament with 16,5 points each.

On the photo above I am with Sergey Karjakin and his wife Kateryna Dolzhikova.

I played in the men's tournament and achieved only 5 points which is by far not the best blitz result in my career. Despite the fact that the tournament was very strong, the only explanation lies in the lack of practice. However, I played a few interesting games and I will try to post some videos shortly. Even though I was not playing so well, I managed to beat Grandmasters Alexey Korotylev (ELO 2597) and Evgeni Vasiukov (ELO 2485), and I drew Grandmasters Maxim Dlugy (ELO 2518) and Vadim Zviagintsev (ELO 2635).

Here is my biggest disappointment of the tournament:

In this position I was playing Black against Alexander Grischuk. It's Black to move, try to find the best continuation for Black. I didn't find it and at the end lost the game.

The separate women's tournament was won by Valentina Gunina (on the photo below)

who scored 13,5 out of 17 followed by Daria Charochkina with 12 points and Alina Kashlinskaya with 11,5 points.

Despite the result I enjoyed a wonderful day with my darling daughter Francesca.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Lukhovitsy - the Cucumber Capital of Russia

Hello everybody!

Yesterday I had a chance to visit the town of Lukhovitsy which is located about 130 km south-east from Moscow. Lukhovitsy is not only known for its aviation factory which produces MIG airplanes but it is also famous for producing cucumbers. In fact, there is a monument and a museum that are dedicated to cucumbers! On the photo above you can see me next to the cucumber monument and below is a photo of me in the cucumber museum.

Of course I was able to try these famous cucumbers. I must say they are delicious.

However my main reason to visit Lukhovitsy was to open a blitz chess tournament that was dedicated to the 1st of September - the Knowledge Day in Russia. I was very touched when during the opening ceremony one master from Lukhovitsy - Viktor Levochkin presented me a chess puzzle that he dedicated to me since all the pieces in the starting position are forming the K-letter, the first letter of my last name. Here it is:

White to play and checkmate in 4 moves.

Tomorrow I will try to do my best in the Moscow Blitz Championship. I played in the Moscow Blitz Championship twice in 2005 and in 2006. If you are in Moscow you can pass by anytime from noon till 6pm and enjoy the tournament. The tournament will take place in the park of Art "Muzeon" on Krymsky Val, 10. You can also follow this tournament on Twitter.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Moscow Blitz Championship 2009

This coming Sunday, August 30th I'll be playing in the Moscow blitz chess championship which will be very strong. The participants of this event are:

1. Dmitry Jakovenko - 2770

2. Alexander Morozevich - 2751

3. Sergey Karjakin - 2717

4. Vladimir Malakhov - 2707

5. Boris Grachev - 2669

6. Evgeny Najer - 2663

7. Alexey Dreev - 2660

8. Boris Savchenko - 2650

9. Alexander Riazantsev - 2647

10. Mikhail Kobalia - 2645

11. Farrukh Amonatov - 2641

12. Vadim Zvjagintsev - 2635

13. Alexei Korotylev - 2607

14. Evegeny Vorobiov - 2598

15. Maxim Dlugy - 2518

16. Alexandra Kosteniuk - 2516

17. Georgy Kastanieda - 2502

18. Evgeny Vasiukov - 2485

19. Nikolai Vlasov - 2471

20. Evgeny Dragomaretsky - 2440

It will be a very good training for me and I need it very much since this November I'll be participating in the World Blitz Championship which will take place in Moscow on November 15, 16 and 17. I will let you know more about this coming World Blitz Championship in September.

As usual after the Moscow Blitz Champioship I will try to post on-line as many games as possible.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Olga Rubtsova Memorial Tournament

Today I was invited to the Moscow Central Chess Club on Gogol street to honor the veteran lady players participating in the Olga Rubtsova Memorial Tournament, taking place exactly 100 years after her birth.

Olga Rubtsova was the fourth Women's World Chess Champion in history (1956-1958), see the Wikipedia article about her.

All the participating ladies next to me in the photo below are true pioneers of Soviet and Russian chess, and it is with great emotion that I was among them. The veteran of the tournament was Kira Zvorykina (see her Wikipedia page), who will turn 90 years old next week, she was 5-time champion of the USSR, and was married to GM Alexei Suetin. It's very impressive to be playing a chess tournament at 90 years old... I hope I will be able to do that...

The winner of the tournament was no one else than Elena Fatalibekova, who actually is the daughter of Olga Rubtsova and you can see me here giving her the first prize trophy.

Every single woman in that group deserve most warm congratulations. They were simply amazing! The results table is below.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Moscow and Vogue 09-09

Hello everybody!

I finally reached my destination and arrived in Moscow. The flight went very well and I liked flying with Delta Airlines.

At the airport I bought the September issue of the Russian "Vogue" magazine and found there an article about me. They made a very unusual choice of photos but I liked the article which is the most important thing for me. I scanned the article for you so you can read it (if you know Russian, of course):) Click on the small image below to see the full article.

What do you think is the first thing I do after arriving home? The answer is obvious: I check my emails, new tweets and my facebook page of course! So I get very disappointed when there is no internet! Luckily today everything worked fine and I received lots of interesting emails.

Andreas sent me a few puzzles for my blog and here is one of them. Once in a while I will post his puzzles to keep your mind busy:)

This is the position from the game Menchik, Vera - Graf, Sonja (Wch (Women) Semmering, 1937). It's White to move.

Tomorrow I'm going for a week to a chess training session close to Moscow and I hope I will be able to get connected on-line there.

Kaleidoscope: Switzerland, Russia, Greece, France

Hi everybody!

Here is a review of the recent women's tournaments and chess results all around the world.

Just a few minutes ago the very strong tournament "The Baltic Queen" in St-Petersburg, Russia has finished. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (on the photo) scored 6 points out of 9 and took clear first place. The second place was taken by Ekaterina Atalik with 5.5 points and the third place was shared by Pia Cramling, Viktoria Cmilyte and Elizabeth Paehtz with 5 points.

The Jubiläums-Open «200 Jahre Schachgesellschaft Zürich» in Zurich was won by GM Alexander Areschenko from the Ukraine who scored 7.5 points out of 9. The top women's result in this open-tournament in Zurich was shown by Hou Yifan, who scored 6,5 points out of 9 and shared the 5th place. The final table can be found here.

The Acropolis-open 2009 in Greece was won by GM Borki Predojevic who took 7.5 points out of 9. The best women's result was shown by Elina Danielian from Armenia, who finished the tournament with 5,5 points out of 9. The final results can be seen here.

The Russia - China match is currently under way. The classical part of the match has finished. The Russian men won 13:12, but the Russian women lost 11,5 to 13,5. Tomorrow the rapid part of the match begins and then the participants will play the blitz part. Nevertheless in the last classical game Valentina Gunina who plays for Russia won in a very convincing style against the leader of the Chinese team Zhao Xue.

Zhao Xue just took the pawn on d4 17. ... cxd4 It's White to move now, can you find it?

Valentina found a very nice rook maneuver. She played 18. Rd3! and after Rd5 transfered her rook from the center to the king's flank 19.Rg3! This maneuver forced Black to weaken the king's side by playing g5 and after 20.f4 d3 21.Bxd3 Kf8 22.Kh1 Qc7 23.c4 Ra5 Valentina finished the game with a nice tactical blow:

The women's championship of France is under way right now and Sophie Millet is leading the event with 6 points out of 8 and almost secured herself the first place.

At the end I'd like to show you one photo which I liked very much. It's a photo of Irina Sudakova from the Baltic Queen tournament in Saint-Petersburg. Vicktoria Cmilyte is analyzing her game. There is some poetry in this photo. A beautiful chess player, the board and the light that comes into this small room.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Women's World Team Chess Championship 2009

From September 1 to September 12 the 2nd Women's World Team Chess Championship will take place in Ningbo, China. 10 of the best women's teams from around the world will take part in this prestigious event. Here is the list of the teams and participants:

Armenia:

Elina Danielyan

Lilit Mkrtchyan

Lilit Galoyan

Nelli Aghinyan

Siranush Andriasyan

China Team One:

Hou YifanZhao XueShen YangJu WenjunHuang Qian

China Team Two:

Tan ZhongyiZhang XiaowenWang YuDing YixinWang Xiaohui

Georgia:

Maia Chiburdanidze

Nana Dzagnidze

Lela Javakhisvili

Maia Lomineishvili

Reserve:

Sopiko Khukhashvili

or

Salome Melia

or

Nino Khurtsidze

India:

Harika Dronavalli

Tania Sadchev

Kruttika Nadig

Eesha Karavade

Gomes Mary Ann

Poland:

Iweta Rajlich

Jolanta Zawadzka

Joanna Majdan

Joanna Dworakowska

Karina Szczepkowska-Horowska

Russia:

Tatiana Kosintseva

Nadezhda Kosintseva

Elena Tairova

Marina Roman’ko

Reserve:

Valentina Gunina

or Ekaterina Kovalevskaya

Ukraine:

Natalia Zhukova

Anna Ushenina

Inna Gaponenko

Maria Muzychuk

Natalia Zdebskaia

USA:

Irina Krush

Anna Zatonskykh

Rusudan Goletiani

Alisa Melekhina

Reserve: Tatev Abrahamian

Vietnam:

HOANG THI BAO TRAM

PHAM LE THAO

NGUYENHOANG THI NHU Y

PHAM BICH NGOC

VO THI KIM PHUNG

This should be a very interesting event and I will make sure to let you know the results as they play out.

In 2009-2010 FIDE is planning to hold 6 Women's Grand-Prix tournaments with 12 players participating in each of them. There will be 17 players who will participate in the Grand-Prix series. Each player who qualified for the Grand-Prix will need to choose 4 tournaments out of 6 to play. The winner of this Grand-Prix series will play a match against the women's world chess champion in 2011. The rules of the Grand-Prix series can be found on the FIDE website, here.

Kosteniuk wins 2009 US Open Blitz

Hi to all!

Finally now that I'm back home, I'm ready to tell you about the 2009 US Open blitz championship which I won on August 8, 2009.

It was a 7 double rounds event with 5 minutes for each partner to finish the game. Since I LOVE blitz I couldn't miss a chance to participate in the US open blitz championship. However in the first few rounds I could feel some lack of blitz practice, and at the beginning of the 6th round I was 1 point behind the leader GM Mesgen Amanov. In the first game of our mini-match I was playing Black and equalized pretty easily to reach a draw. In the second game I was playing White and of course wanted to win. My opponent chose the very sharp Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defence and so we went into a long theoretical battle which ended with an unfortunate mistake of my partner. I commented the game for you and posted it on youtube.com/chessqueen . You can also click on the image at the top of this post to be redirected to my video.

In the last round I was able to win 2-0 (Amanov was not able to win 2-0) and so I became the 2009 US Open blitz champion.

I'm now preparing for the Moscow Blitz Championship which will take place on August 30, 2009 in Moscow. It will be super strong, and I hope that this win will give me enough confidence that will help me in Moscow. I hope to post many more games from Indianapolis and from Moscow in the near future on my YouTube channel "chessqueen".

Saturday, August 15, 2009

3rd Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for kids 2009

Hello everybody!

I just wanted to let you all know that on November 28 and 29, 2009 the third Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for Kids under 6 (yob - 2003 and younger) and under 8 (yob - 2001 and younger) will take place in Elista, Russia.

Elista is the capital of the republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation (Russia). It is located on the South of Russia, approximately 2,5 hours by plane from Moscow. Two very entertaining artciles about arriving to Elista and about Kalmykia with many photos can be found on chessbase.com, here and here.

The Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for Kids will be held in the City-Chess in Elista. You can have a look at the City-Chess and listen to the interview with Kirsan Ilymzhinov - the president of FIDE and of the Republic of Kalmykia, in Russian, here.

It will be a 8 rounds swiss system tournament with the time control of 25 minutes to each participant for one game. The regulations of the tournament (in Russian) can be found here.

For more information about the tournament you can write me an email, and I will gladly help you.

Here I could have played effective 28...Nxf2!? but it only gives a draw:29.Qc7 ( 29.Kxf2?! Re8! 30.Qa7 Qe2+ 31.Kg1 Qxb5 and black's position is a bit better due to weak opponent's king) Re8 30.Nd6 Nxh3+ 31.Bxh3 Qe3+ with perpetual.

29.Rf1 Nd2 30.Rd1?

Here he should have played 30.Rc1! Ne4 (30...Be4 is also possible 31.Qc7 Bxg2 32.Kxg2 Qf3+ 33.Kg1 Rf8 34.Qg3 Qe2 with and equal position) 31.Rf1 with repetition.Worse is 30.Re1 Be4 ( 30...Nf3+? is a big mistake now due to 31.Bxf3 Qxf3 32.Qd7 Rf8 33.Re8 and White wins!) 31.Qc7 Bxg2 32.Kxg2 Qf3+ 33.Kg1 Rf8 and in this sharp position black has better chances.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Monika Socko winner in Tromso

Who says that women play chess worse then men? Show me one man on the planet of Earth who will be capable of taking care of 3 children, of a spouse, of the house and at the same time will be able to become a GM, to play strong and exciting chess and sometimes win chess tournaments. If you will find such man, please let me know, but I doubt there is one. At the same time, I can name you one woman who is not only doing all the things that I wrote above, but who also is a great and very kind person who is always ready to help.

I'm very glad to introduce to you today the women's chess star - Monika Socko!

A.K.: Dear Monika! Congratulations on your impressive victory in Tromso! What are your impressions of Tromso and the tournament?

Monika Socko: Tromso is a lovely city surrounded by mountains and sea. It is located near the Arctic circle, but the weather was really nice during the tournament!I have really nice memories from Tromso. Not only because of my result but also because of many nice activities I had, like excursions, fishing trips etc.

A.K.:What is the best game of yours in the tournament? Can you comment a small fragment of any of your games of Tromso?

Monika: I would say the game against GM Turner was the best. I played Sicilian as black, sacrificed a pawn and got a strong initiative.

A.K.: You came to Tromso with your husband and your son, how did you manage to prepare, play and take care of your family?

Monika: My son is a very quiet child (as opposed to my daughters), so he was not a problem during my preparation.

A.K.: I noticed that your son was also playing in Tromso, do you want to see your children as professional chess players in the future?

Monika: We'd like them to play chess of course, but the choice of being professionals is theirs.

A.K.:Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your date of birth?

Monika: March 24, 1978

A.K.: Where were you born?

Monika: Warsaw (Poland)

A.K.: Where do you live now?

Monika: During my childhood I lived in Rybnik - a town on the south of Poland, but now we all live in a small village near Warsaw.

A.K: How did you start playing chess?

Monika: My father wanted to teach his son football, but he has 2 daughters so he teached them to play chess.

A.K.: Who was your first coach and with whom you are working right now?

Monika: It was my father, of course. Then I worked with IM Matlak, and now mostly I'm working together with my husband.

A.K.: What are your main achievements in chess?

Monika: Gold medal in the European Team Championship in 2005, bronze medal in the Olympiad in Bled in 2002. I also won the European Club Cup twice with the Monaco team. Individually I was 3 times champion of Poland. I won a strong closed tournament in Baku 2007. My win in Tromso is also a great success.

A.K.: What is your peak rating?

Monika: My best rating was 2505 a year ago, and I hope to have a better one soon.

A.K.: Do you consider yourself a professional chess player?

Monika: Yes. I'm not doing anything else, but I must say that taking care of my family and home is really a full time job also.

A.K.: I've always admired you and your energy. You have a big family and still play chess very successfully. Can you tell us a little bit about your family and share the secret about how do you manage to be a mom, a wife and a strong chess player?

Monika: We have 3 lovely children (Weronika 9, Szymon 7 and Julia 3). There is really a lot to do with them, so we don't have much time to work on chess at home, but we try to spend every free moment on chess. I treat tournaments like a holiday from the work in the house, so maybe this is the reason of my recent success... :)

A.K.: Do you believe in the future of women’s chess? And what do you think we need to do in order to make chess more popular?

Monika: Yes, I think women's chess has a future. My daughter plays in junior tournaments and I can see many young girls playing chess. This is good. The only problem is the insufficient number of good women tournaments, but I think it is changing slowly.

A.K.: What is the best chess country in the world?

Monika: Russia. But there is a strong opponent - China.

A.K.: What is the best organized women’s tournament you took part in?

Monika: This was closed tournament in Baku in 2007. I wish I could play there again!

A.K.: What is your dream in chess?

Monika: To win the last game in the World Championship.

A.K.: What is your favorite chess piece?

Monika: The pawn. It has a future!

A.K.: What is your favorite place in the world?

Monika: Rio de Janeiro

A.K.: What is your favorite kind of food?

Monika: I really like soups. The best is Polish "Zurek"

A.K.: What are your plans for this year? In what tournaments are you planning to play?

Russia-China Annual Chess Match

From August 15 till August 24 in Dagomys (Russia), the 6th annual match between the national teams (men's and women's) of Russia and China will take place. Each team will consist of 10 players (5 men and 5 women). The players will play a Scheveningen match with 5 games with classical time control, 5 games in rapid chess and 5 games in blitz.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

CHESS COACH NEEDED 4 AFRICA!!!

A few days ago I received an email from Mr. Nizar Elhaj, vice-president of FIDE. He wrote that a few countries in Africa are looking for a good trainer that will agree to train the women's chess teams of these countries (max. rating of the players is 2200) for one year, traveling from country to country every 10 weeks to 3 months. So if you have any training experience and do want to go to Africa in order to help women's chess in Africa and to train African women's teams, you can write an email to Mr. Nizar Elhaj with your resume, training experience and your conditions.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

US Chess Open 2009: DAY 2

Hi everybody!

I just got back to my hotel room after a nice walk in Downtown Indianapolis.

Today was another wonderful day for me at the US chess open since I won the US Open Blitz Championship with 12.5 points out of 14. I will write about this championship in a couple days, as now it's time for my chess story of the second day of the main event in the US Open 2009.

In the fourth round I was playing Black against the FM Carl Boor. I didn't face any problems in the opening with Black and soon after the opening we reached the following position:

White just played 19. Rab1. It seems that White has to be doing OK. In fact they are already almost losing. Since after I played 19. ... f5! 20.Nc3 e5! I'm threatening to play e4 and then Nd4 and White's position is collapsing. My opponent tried to complicate the game after 21.Nd5 Qd6 22.c5 but I took the pawn on c5 22. ... Qxc5 and after 23.Bc4 Kh8 24.b4 Qd6 25.Rbd1 created a nice pawn chain by playing 25. ... e4

and 13 moves later I won the game.

In the fifth round I played the most exciting game of my tournament against GM Nikola Mitkov.

In this position it's White to move. I was playing White and I liked my position very much during the game. The only problem since it was a 60-minutes game and I didn't have much time at this moment I wanted to find a plan to follow. 25.Re2 with the idea after Qg5 to play 26.Rae1 and to double my rooks on the e-file might have been the best decision here.

But I started a life-threatening operation to win the f4 pawn and played 25. Qf3 Qg5 26. Re4 Black took on b6 Bxb6

and here I almost automatically took on b6 since before playing 25. Qf3 I decided to go to the position that happened in the game but I missed the very strong 28th move for Black

27. axb6?

Instead I could have played 27. h4!? since after Qxh4 28.Rxf4 Qg5 I have the very strong move 29.Nxf7! because if Black takes on f7 now 29...Bxf7 30.Rxf7 after Ba7 White will take 31.Rxb7 and then most likely will win the pawns on c6 and then on a6 and will have sufficient compensation for the bishop. If Black plays 29. ... Qe7 then after 30.Re1 Bc7 31.Nxd8 Qxd832.Rfe4 Qd5 33.Qd1 Qd6 34.Qh5 with the idea of playing Bb3 and despite the fact that Black has two pieces for a rook White has a good position.Black played Bd5 asking what my idea was.

Obviously I had seen this position before playing 25. Qf3 and decided to play here

28. Qxf4 but missed the move f6!At first I thought that I have to play 29. Qxg5 hxg5 30.Nxc6 Bxc6 and even though I have some compensation for the piece I was not happy with that since a few minutes ago my position was much better and now I will need to play for a draw. After a few more minutes I noticed an interesting idea and played

29. Nf3!? but objectively speaking 29. Qxg5 would have been stronger.

Rxe4 30.Qc7!

But my opponent found the very strong move Re1+! and I had to make a difficult choice again.31.Nxe1If White takes with the rook after 31.Rxe1 Bxf3 32.g3 Black has the strong move Re8! and White cannot take on e8 in view of 33. ... Qc1+ and Qh1# that's why I took on e1 with the knight.

Re8 with the idea to take on e1 and to give checkmate on g2 afterwards.

Of course I didn't play 32. Qg3 here since the only idea for me in this position is to try to promote the pawn on b6 even if I would need to sacrifice some material for that. That's why I chose

32.f3and even though after

Qe3+ 33.Kh2 Qxc3 34.Rd1 Black won the knight Rxe1 35.Rxe1 Qxe1 36.Qxb7 my b6 pawn gave me enough compensation and forced Black to give away the bishop on d5 after Qd2 37.Qc7 Bxf3 38.Bb3+ Kh8 39.Qg3 Qxb4 40.Qxf3 Qxb6 Black has two extra pawns and probably their position is won but having less than a minute on my clock I was able to hold it and even at the very end my opponent forfeited on time but I only noticed it after I proposed a draw and he agreed. A very hard-fought draw and I had one more round to play and of course I wanted to finish the tournament on a good note.In the sixth round I was playing Black against IM Daniel Fernandez. Interestingly enough I already met Daniel 5 years ago playing in the US open in Fort Lauderdale. That time I also played Black and won the game, so I was not against a small deja-vu. :)We started the game with the sharp Sicilian Defence, Daniel didn't play precisely and I got a very dangerous initiative.

White just played 21. Bg4 I continued the game with the nice 21. ... d3! White replied 22. Bh2

If White plays 22.Kb1 then after dxc2+ 23.Qxc2 Black can take on f4 Qxf4

and after 24.Bh2 to play Qxg4 because if White takes on b8 now 25. Bxb8 Black has a strong move Bb7! with double attack on e4 and the bishop on b8 and the game can continue like this: 26. Rd4 Rc8! 27. Bc7 e5 28. Rc4 Rxc7!!. If White plays 25.Rhg1 Qxh4 26.Bg3 Qxg5Back to the game after 22. Bh2 I played 22. ... b3! White has to take 23. axb3 Rxb3 24. f5 Qc6

25. Be5

If White plays here 25. Kb1 then after Bb4 26. Qf2 Black can sacrifice the rook by playing 26. ... Rxb2! 27. Kxb2 Bc3+ 28.Kb3 e5 and White has no defence from coming Be6 and Rb8 since after 29. Qa7 Black plays Bd4, winning.

Probably I was tired here since it was already the third game of the day or maybe for some other reasons but I calculated the following variation:

29. ... Qxg4 30. fxg7 Re8 31. Qd8 threatening to take on e8 with checkmate and I decided that I have nothing to do and started looking for some other moves. Instead I should have continued the variation with 31. ... Bxc3 and after 32. Qxe8 it's only a check since the pawn on g7 is not protected anymore and I can simply take the pawn32. ... Kxg7 and Black is winning since after 33. b3 Ra5 White has no defence from checkmate.

That's how I could have ended the game immediately, instead I found the very nice Queen sacrifice 29. ... Bxc3!? but unfortunately for me White doesn't have to take my Queen since after 30. Qxe4?? Black wins after 30. ... Rxb2+ 31. Kc1 Ra2 and in order to save from being checkmated White will need to give back his Queen.

My opponent replied 30. Qc3 and I had to start winning the game all over again which I managed to do in a nice way. You can watch the rest of the game simply by copying the moves below and pasting them into the pgnplayer.com

That's how my second day of the US open 2009 finished. Be sure to check the blog next week since I will try to prepare a story about the US open blitz championship as well as I will comment and post some videos with the games from the blitz championship to my YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/chessqueen .